This study is an investigation into parental motivations, attitudes, and linguistic practices related to the intergenerational transmission of Spanish in two Mexican American communities, and is the first qualitative Midwest/Southwest comparison of two communities on different ends of the bilingualism spectrum: El Paso, Texas and the neighborhood of La Villita, in Chicago. The goal of this project was to examine how a speaker's choice to transmit or not her native language to her children is impacted by her community's linguistic marketplace, or what Mufwene (2008) calls the community's linguistic ecology. Data was collected through the use of five instruments designed to garner information regarding speakers' perceptions of ethnolinguistic vitality for Spanish in their community; their attitudes and motivations toward Spanish language use and transmission, family practices that could foster or hinder Spanish development, household language use, and an analysis of the mother's network of social interaction. While parents in both communities expressed positive attitudes about the use of Spanish in their community and their household, results suggest that families which provided their children with greater opportunities to develop oral and written competence where those in which the mother perceived that Spanish as an important component of their children's identity, and an instrument to access future economic opportunities.In the following passage of School Daze/Mareo Escolar, Jose Antonio Burciaga,
describes his experience of linguistic repression: I can remember 1949 and the
third grade in El Paso where I was one of the Mexican children. Down to theanbsp;...